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The South of the African Equator blog expressed the views and opinions of its author discussing various subjects concerned, mostly, with national affairs. The sentiments expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the views of either his business, family or friends.

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Category: Life

By Andrew Field – Follow on TwitterI was humoured the other day by the Facebook thought control police (ThinkPol – Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four)… I wrote a sentence containing two words, “Muslim” and “kill”, and, no, it wasn’t “kill all Muslims”. I was temporarily suspended for this heinous hate crime. After being wrapped on the wrist, I was re-admitted, but was left wondering just how vulnerable we all seem to be to institutional gagging and pathetic attempts at thought control.

There is little doubt in my mind that we are all now subjected to the whims of official muffling of anything right of centre and just how serious this is. You may not realise it, but it is endemic and the loony left are winning. Dumb think is going global. If you are old, traditional or even a touch nationalist in your approach to life you have to accept that you are simply a thoroughly bad bastard.

On the fringe we are beginning to see mass migrations from poor to wealthy countries, where no immigration control is imposed upon a class of people, because of their colour or criminal religion. We suffer ad infinum the promotion of multi-culturalism to support their integration, which they will not do. It has become criminal to criticise criminal perverts of one particular criminal faith! We are seeing anarchist movements styling themselves as anti-fascist, yet operating violently; much as the fascist Hitler Youth did in years gone by.

Police forces, weakened at the knees, merely look the other way to save grace from potential and politically incorrect action. Yet they are quick to arrest and detain those on mere suggestion of intended right thinking discourse. Even judicial authority suffers the dictate of the thought police, being denied the right to use certain words that may offend. We are seeing well-co-ordinated campaigns of hatred directed at sitting presidents who enjoyed the popular vote. And referendums, the popular vote, are wrong! We are flooded with fake news and all manner of propaganda by both governments and both state and independent media.

We are also observing the shocking phenomenon of the world turning a blind eye to nasty, and often violent, persecution (unless the victims are of colour or a particular criminal, religious sect). We are seeing a swooning of support for horrid dictators who would unleash their nuclear arsenals; non-secular states who deny religious freedom and oppress their minions, especially the women; vile racists who oppress and prejudice white minorities; governments who favour foreigners before their own; and abandonment of their veterans once used. And, you dare not point a finger for fearing ThinkPol will get you!

What a shocking state of affairs. So now we have social media playing the role of discovering and punishing “thoughtcrimes”. It’s a disgrace and an affront to my rights to freedom of expression, an invasion of my privacy through the apparently poor use of criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance, interpretation of thought based on few selected key words, and dodgy algorithms, yet a denial of my rights to face my accusers, when caught. Clearly Facebook has succumbed – its clients can no longer express their opinion without sanction or penalty for wrongful accusation, unless they toe the liberal or leftist line.

We need to understand, as we do of course, that freedom of speech is not absolute and does not cross the bounds of defamation, obscenity, or porn. Nor should one be seditious or incite others to violent resistance, yet social media abounds with revenge hate crime and I need not point to either colour or creed to say who gets away with it. This is the global hypocrisy we suffer today, but I shall not be muzzled by Facebook. Hell no, there are plenty of ways to skin the cat, and they know it.

By Andrew Field – Follow on Twitter
Social media users are becoming stale at creating new and interesting own-content, thus allowing the networks to be hijacked by partisan politics, extremist religion, and to a lesser degree causes, anti-phobias and conspiracies. It is a hot pot of grumpiness.

Recent surveys suggested that “more than one-third of social media users are worn out by the amount of political content they encounter”. And, individually, you really are not contributing to the groundswell of content or discontent with fresh ideas. Same old, same old.

Both Facebook and Twitter are being populated with so much unoriginal content that they have become the premier platform for re-messaging (sharing/re-tweeting) partisan interests. The volume of conflicting ideas and philosophies in single medium has never been surpassed. Stop the internet, I just want to get off… enough, I just don’t care what you think, really!

Social media users are suffering information overload, and often this excess is of material they do not wish to deal with. The Pew Research Center suggests that “more than half (of users) describe their online interactions with those they disagree with politically as stressful and frustrating”. People with causes are using brutal force feed tactics to deliver their messages, often with horrific, gory images.

Content is stressful indeed. Those users let loose on social media who do create original content seem to pursue very blinkered views. They will not entertain contrary thoughts that may be different, unconventional, or even from a new perspective. Dogmatic content sometimes reflects, sometimes poorly, on the user’s general upbringing, philosophies and shaping.

To cap this, there is an awful lot of anger out there in social media. Clearly, this is an angry little world and so too is the content of social media. It is nasty. The tone of content is often disrespectful, condescending and, frankly, troubling. This anger is a reflection of the broader climate in our societies today. Who foments this anger and what is the end objective?

Add to this spurious, fake news. Social media users have a penchant for fake news distribution. They just cannot help themselves. Few take time to check and verify. Gullibility is at its peak. The more outrageous the better, and why not one might ask?

Governments and the mainstream media have been the masters of fake news for years. We used to call it propaganda. But today’s fake new is sensational, good reading for the bored masses and angry people. They are being fed, and we are all being manipulated.

Governments, in their infinite wisdom (takes tongue out of cheek), busy themselves with anti-hate laws in the hope that the problem will subside. It will not go away. Racism was never properly suppressed, its use moved simply from one hue to the other. It’s a cause that will not die. Nor will religious extremism.

Populations have aversions to those who are different and do not conform to custom. Social media provides a ready platform to offer discontent and multiplies the issues when legislated against. Germany’s proposal to fine social media companies for failing to remove illegal content “is a significant moment in democracy’s battle with digital giants”, according to some!

Social media moguls are extending the science of social media with artificial intelligence. Google has launched a new AI program called Perspective to detect “abusive” comments and hatred online. Facebook recently admitted “it has become clear that our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like”.

With both government and social media controls creeping in, users are actually seeing little relief. In fact the problem is getting worse, and the majority of users now try harder to avoid political and religious argument on social media.

Often, when avoidance fails, users take steps to filter or curate their feeds, frequently then eliminating the good material too! When the State takes a role in the media, the news is always biased, but boycott often leaves one without useful information.

The solution may lie very much in your choice of contacts and friends in social media. The average user is actually carrying too many contacts. Once it was vogue to have as many as you could muster, but alas, that is biting back.

Some interesting statistics suggest that two-thirds of your Facebook friends are generally known to you personally, while Twitter is almost the reverse. Yet of your contacts, only about a quarter have similar views to you, less than 6% opposing views about politics and the rest have mixed or neutral opinions. Selective pruning of your contacts may well be necessary. But do you want to stick your head in the sand?

Unless you can achieve some peace of mind in social media, angry information overload will wear you down. One would think that if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, yet social media, especially Facebook, membership continues to climb. Clearly humanity needs its little dose of anger, its gripes, whinges and whines. We are being overwhelmed, it may be time for some to pull the plug on this social monster.

He moved forward slowly, the sweat dripping from his forehead, the sun baking down between sparse mopani canopies. The warmth of his dusty environment challenges him every step through the thick brush, the dryness overwhelms, but he must progress, ever on the lookout for any guiding sign. The wisp of a warm breeze brings the mild aroma of the African bush, the sweet spring fragrance of new tree blooms. He is silent, hopeful of hearing a twig break underfoot or the crack of a branch broken by his browsing quarry. Alas, the silence of the bush is broken only by the cry of a distant fish eagle, down towards the river’s edge, or the excited twitter of birds above, betraying his presence. The signs are few.

The gentle monster is there, somewhere, but stealthy, silent and aware of his pursuer, although not fugitive. He is not feeding in the heat of the noon hours. The bull moves without a sound, his huge feet pliable and sensitive to the trail that he follows, occasionally stopping for idle moments in the shade of the larger trees. His uplifted trunk scans the air with periscope movement for foreign smells, for his sight is not good in the mid-day glare. The beast offers the occasional rumbling, a distance communication mostly inaudible to humans, and then moves on in the sweltering heat.

Suddenly they are upon each other, face to face, surprised and both cannily brave. The bull elephant towers at almost three meters, just huge, the largest land mammal. Weighing five tonnes or more with ears flared, tusks protruding and startled. He trumpets his disapproval, stands tall, tossing his head. Extreme dangers prevail upon the man. Instinctively, the camera is levelled at the big fellow and film flows through its sprockets, while photographer seeks to capture that ‘perfect shot’, oblivious to the threat for those critical seconds. Both of them stand down, back off a little, but not loosing eye contact. The adrenaline begins to flow, heart rates accelerate, and the camera begins to shake mildly. Discretion dictates that the photographer should be the looser here, but in his own special way he is a winner too.

Life is full of encounters which bring you to the threshold of victory or defeat and by standing forever tall against your opposition you will triumph, even as the vanquished – Andrew Field – October 2009